1932 - Franz von Papen became Chancellor of Germany following the resignation of Heinrich Brüning on May 30, and played a significant role in persuading President Paul von Hindenburg to appoint Adolf Hitler as Chancellor.
1958 - General Charles de Gaulle became Prime Minister of France at the head of a government of emergency in response to a crisis in Algeria, which was ruled by France.
1968 - The American writer Helen Keller (deaf and blind) passed away; she learned to communicate through a special language from the age of seven and continued to publish many books based on her experiences, the most notable of which is "The Story of My Life."
1996 - Ukraine became a nuclear-weapon-free state with the transfer of its last warheads to Russia.
2001 - King Birendra of Nepal, Queen Aishwarya, and six other family members were killed in a massacre at the palace by their son, Crown Prince Dipendra, who subsequently shot himself.
2002 - Former South African cricket captain Hansie Cronje was killed when the plane he was on crashed in the mountains of the Western Cape.
2003 - Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush signed the Moscow Treaty.
2003 - China closed the Yangtze River and the gates at the dam to fill a reservoir that is 600 kilometers (365 miles) long in the largest hydropower project in the world.
2005 - The Netherlands rejected the European Union Constitution in a referendum, dealing a major blow to a treaty already rejected by France.
2009 - General Motors filed for bankruptcy, forcing the automaker, once seen as a symbol of American strength and economic dynamism, to succumb. It was considered the third-largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history and the largest ever in manufacturing.
